WICLIF, (c.1320-84). A noted English
reformer, often styled the ‘Morning Star of the
Reformation.’ He was born probably near
Richmond, in Yorkshire. The known facts of his life
are singularly few and meagre. He seems to have
belonged to a well-to-do family of the lower
nobility and to have been sent as a youth to the
University of Oxford. He became a fellow and
not long before 1360 master of Balliol College. He was made rector of the neighboring parish of Fillingham (1361-69), of Ludgarshall (1369-74), and of Lutterworth (1374-84). In 1365 he appears as King's chaplain, if this is the proper translation of peculiaris regis clericus, and from this date he enters into close relations with the Government, especially with the King's son John (of Gaunt). In 1375 he was made a member of a royal commission to confer with legates of the Pope at Bruges. Attention was first called to his views on theological questions in the year 1376, and he was summoned to give account of his teaching at Saint Paul's in London by Bishop Courtenay. In the next year a series of Papal bulls were procured, directing the ecclesiastical authorities to proceed against Wiclif, but he was supported by so strong a faction at the time that nothing could be accomplished. At a second hearing at Lambeth in 1378 he was protected by the Queen Mother and allowed to withdraw with only a gentle admonition. From this time until two years before his death in 1384, he continued to write and teach at Oxford, elaborating his views with more clearness and winning many supporters. His doctrines were carried to Prague and served there as the basis of the revolt under John Huss. They were formally condemned at the Council of Constance (1415) and repudiated by all parties down to the Reformation. In 1428 Pope Martin V. called upon Bishop Flemmyng, of London, to disinter the remains of Wiclif from the parish church at Lutterworth and scatter them abroad, and this was done.
The activities of Wiclif may be classified as
political, theological, and evangelical, but these
are all closely connected by a common principle
of thought. The one creative idea which governed
all his action, and which may be regarded as
Wiclif's contribution to the Reformation, is the
right of the individual to form his opinions on
the basis of Scripture and reason, and then to
carry out these opinions in association with other
individuals as seems best to him and them. Although he describes himself as a realist and worked according to the formal methods of the mediæval realistic school of thought, his conclusions are largely tinged by the new nominalistic writing of William of Ockham and Marsiglio of Padua. The essence of this new thought was the comparative unimportance of traditions in Church or State, and the corresponding right of the members of the body politic or religious to govern themselves as they saw fit. Such ideas fell in naturally with the newly developed nationalistic feeling in all countries, and more especially in England. If it was true that Englishmen owed their first duty to England, then there must be some way of showing that such national loyalty was consistent with fidelity to the Christian faith. Wiclif's first public service was in furnishing to the Government just such a demonstration as this. In 1365 the Pope, then living in France, had renewed a long-neglected claim on England for the tribute promised by King John a hundred and fifty years before as a part of his bargain with Rome. Money given to the Papacy seemed to be money taken from England to serve her enemy, France, and the Government sought a valid excuse for refusing the demand. Wiclif's pamphlet, Determinatio quædam de